Dyspeptics - Your sufferings have not been in vain!

Did you know that life insurers used to routinely decline to pay out claims on grounds that the insured was a chronic dyspepsia patient? No? Well, here's something for you then.

Savita Nathawat

04 Dec 2008

In a mad-rush world where you are
trying your hardest to keep fit because you need to get up the next day to go to
work, when work becomes the point of existence, a mad scramble to meet the next
EMI payment, providing for the family, and putting something resembling a nest
egg for your golden years,... you could be forgiven for the more than occasional
attack of dyspepsia, couldn't you?

Not
according to life insurance companies.

Life
insurers routinely decline to pay out claims on grounds that the insured was a
chronic dyspepsia patient.

That
gravy train is no longer available to insurers.

The
National Consumer Commission has held that dyspepsia - indigestion characterized
by stomach pain, discomfort, heartburn, and nausea often following a meal - is
not a disease in itself. Therefore, no insurance company can deny the sum
assured to a nominee on grounds of non-disclosure of pre-existing
illness/disease.

The
ruling came in connection with the following case:

Kanti
Kumar had bought a life insurance policy with a quarterly premium of Rs 1,404 in
March, 1992. He died in 1997. His widow, Chandra Kant Lohande filed a claim with
the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) but LIC denied the assured sum to
the widow, saying that he was a chronic patient of
dyspepsia.

Reviewing
a petition filed by LIC against a Madhya Pradesh State Commission order, Justice
M. B. Shah, head of the apex consumer panel, directed LIC to pay the sum assured
of Rs. 50000 to Chandra Kant Lohande. According to the Justice, "In today's
world, people face problems like acidity, indigestion, back pain and head ache,
which are sometimes chronic in nature. They cannot be considered as diseases,
which require to be enumerated while answering questionnaire of the LIC in its
proposal form."

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